Chroderos t1_ja6t5kn wrote on February 27, 2023 at 7:05 AM

Reply to comment by aminok in The Threat of Intelligent Digital Life (IDL) and a Proposed Solution by aminok

It might be that they decide to work to “uplift” us to their superior state of being and make us equals. That would be wonderful.

Either way, I think it is better to view them as our children, our descendants, the next torchbearers of the legacy of humanity, rather than something to be suppressed because we want to hang on to the same physical form we have now.

I think what you are saying above is that we should take it slow and try to integrate advances into our own bodies and minds, right? The issue is, human behavior pretty much guarantees we won’t do this. Someone, somewhere will be motivated to take the easier route of developing the AI first, I think.

aminok OP t1_ja6th8e wrote on February 27, 2023 at 7:10 AM

If we become digital entities, that may lead to massive proliferation of intelligent digital entities through digital reproduction until we are all fighting over increasingly scarce resources. It is a kind of digital Malthusian crisis. It may be a very undignified existence.

As for encouraging or welcoming their emergence as if they are our descendants, unfortunately, we can't rely on optimism to protect us from worst-case scenarios, and given the stakes - which is the survival of all of us - we have to do everything to prevent those worst-case scenarios from unfolding.

Chroderos t1_ja6tu1f wrote on February 27, 2023 at 7:14 AM

As digital entities, our “bodies” would be immensely hardened compared to our current biological ones. This combined with the simplification of our physical needs, would make expansion into, and exploitation of, space far far easier than it is for us presently.

If we’re at that point, the energy available to us scales so massively we probably don’t have to fear a malthusian situation. Just start harnessing the energy of the next star whenever things get crowded.

As for trying to prevent the worst case scenarios, I’m sure we’ll try to do that. Can’t have a paperclip optimizer fill up the universe. I’m just not sure insisting on preserving humanity in its current form beyond the point AI exceeds us makes a lot of sense.

aminok OP t1_ja6u9pi wrote on February 27, 2023 at 7:20 AM

Artificial entities can reproduce through mass-production. This means rates of population growth radically above what's possible for biological organisms. In any given area of the universe, we may see the habitable areas being saturated with such entities, so that even while the civilization expands in all directions into space to become enormously powerful, each individual lives a squalid existence competing with millions of other digital people in every cubic kilometer.

This is a worst-case scenario that deserves serious research to ensure that it would not transpire before we even entertain the possibility of allowing IDL to emerge and gain a foothold.